Geothermal Energy Picks Up Steam

We hear a lot about solar and wind energy here at Good Clean Tech, but geothermal energy tends to get looked over. It’s the process of harnessing the power of steam created by the Earth’s super heated core, and it amounts for a very small portion of the globe’s overall energy production. But that might be changing.

The process is already popular in areas like the Philippines and Iceland, countries that have plenty of volcanic activity, but artificial geothermal power could bring it to other parts of the world, as well. Artificial geothermal power involves pumping water into hot rocks to create steam.

“That’s really the holy grail of geothermal: that you can go anywhere and extract the Earth’s heat,” David Blackwell, a geophysicist at Southern Methodist University, told National Geographic.

Unfortunately the process is expensive and won’t be able to get much traction without substantial investment. But analysts still see a demand for geothermal energy, and predict a slow growth leading up to 2020. Currently geothermal energy accounts for just 0.2 percent of global energy production.